(no subject)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that both спрашивать/спросить and просить/попросить can be used with кого-то or у кого-то.
For instance:

Я спросил у ясеня где моя любимая
Я спросил ясеня где моя любимая

Он просил у матери прийти
Он просил матери прийти

Are these constructions interchangable or is each preferable in certain situations? Is there any difference in meaning?

Comments

[nikitachi.livejournal.com]

"Он просил матери прийти" - incorrect. Correct is "Он просил мать прийти". And "Он просил у матери прийти" - you can't say so. You use "просить у" when you ask for something, like "Он попросил у матери рубашку" - "He asked the mother for a shirt". And when you ask to do something, you just use "просить": "Он попросил мать погладить рубашку" - "He asked the mother to iron the shirt". So you may only say "Он просил/попросил мать прийти".

[scolar.livejournal.com]

The first sentence is little bit ugly without "у", but still correct. The second one is totally incorrect: "он просил у матери..." requires a noun in genitive case(e.g. "прощенья", "денег", "разрешения"); "он просил..." requires accusative case - so it should be "он просил мать" and then indefinite verb is expected.

[markushka.livejournal.com]

Generally:

Просить - to ask somebody (to do something)
Спросить - to ask a question

Спросить - perfective aspect. Просить - imperfective aspect.

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

ok, lemme clear up it a bit...

просить = to ask to do smth; it's an imperfect form of the verb (most Russian verbs have a perfect and an imperfect form), which means this action was or will be happening for a while (in this case it would mean one was trying or will be trying to get what's asked for) or it happened several times: Я просил (past), ты просишь (present), она будет просить (future)...

спросить = to ask to do smth, to ask about smth; but it's a perfect form, which means it happened exactly once or it will happen and the duration or desire to get the asked isn't specified or doesn't matter: я спросил (past), ты спросишь (future). In the present this perfect form has a special/distinctive meaning of asking about something like asking the directions or asking the permission as opposed to asking to do something.

So, what you really must be looking for is the prefixes of the verbs and suffixes. The prefixes and suffixes suggest either the perfect form or the imperfect form.
Some of these forms have special meanings or use just like English phrasal verbs.
I've posted earlier on this: http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/498448.html?thread=7577360#t7577360

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I think I should've emphasized it... While those prefixes suggest the perfection form, they're essentially unseparatable from the main verb, from its root/stem in the sense of meaning. That is, just like go + on/off/up/down/at/in/into/out/away/over/around/about/by/for/along/after/across/etc... means a lot of entirely different things, so do Russian verbs, but the role of those special control words (often being prepositions) is often played by the prefixes. So, don't ignore the prefixes or assume that the same verb with different prefixes means the same thing, it's not the case. They prefixes are the key to the meaning. I would recommend that you learn plain verbs (w/o prefixes) and their bare meaning and also the same verbs with prefixes and their changed meaning. That way you won't be mixing things up. Surely, there're many verbs and many prefixes, but heck, every language has got quite a bit of different words and phrases, so, no easy stuff. I'm, btw, doing the same with spanish nouns. They have gender (unlike English) and to use them correctly (e.g. place the correct article in front of them and have the appropriate endings in them and in the adjectives associated with them) I learn a pair definite article + noun. That way even if there's an exception (male noun has female ending or vice versa) I always memorize it right. Learn verbs with prefixes as if they didn't have the prefixes but were indivisible (into prefix+the rest) and individual verbs of their own.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

«The first sentence is little bit ugly without "у", but still correct».

I think that this is because it is obvious that ‘ясень’ is an inanimate and one cannot ask it anything :) The structure with ‘у’ is a bit more poetic so it is possible in this context.

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

Я спросил у ясеня где моя любимая
Я спросил ясеня где моя любимая

The thing is, in the first sentence ясень is in genitive, and in the second one it's in akkusative. If you take ясень as an alive object, you can say "я спросил ясеня", but in general "я спросил ясень" is more correct.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Ok, these are the points I was really trying to get at. This makes more sense now. So, to summarize:

--If you want to ask someone TO DO SOMETHING, use просить + accusative + infinitive - я попросил собаку прийти ко мне

--If you want to ask someone FOR SOMETHING (to give you something), use просить + у кого-то + что - я попросил у дочери прошенья

--The verb спросить can be used with у + genitive case, or just with accusative case. These are interchangable. Я спросил у дочери что её любимый фильм. OR Я спросил дочь что её любимый фильм.

Am I right about all that?

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that while I will be writing an answer there are going to be other comments so I’ll just give my considerations. :)

--If you want to ask someone TO DO SOMETHING, use просить + accusative + infinitive - я попросил собаку прийти ко мне

yes, correct (if, of course, you can ASK a dog to do something :) )
Я попросил Петра позвонить мне.
Я прошу вас оставить меня в покое.
Ваня просит Машу выйти за него замуж.


--If you want to ask someone FOR SOMETHING (to give you something), use просить + у кого-то + что - я попросил у дочери прошенья

I think it is correct too.
Я попросил у отца пять рублей
У него просить помощи бесполезно


--The verb спросить can be used with у + genitive case, or just with accusative case. These are interchangable. Я спросил у дочери что её любимый фильм. OR Я спросил дочь что её любимый фильм.

Yes, I think that in the first case the verb ‘спросить’ is used as intransitive and in the second case as transitive one, but the sense is practically the same.
Only in the examples is better to use ‘какой’ instead of ‘что’.
Я спросил у дочери, какой ее любимый фильм.
Я спросил дочь, какой ее любимый фильм.

Coming back to the example with ‘ясень’, if ‘Ясень’, say, is a nickname of a man, ‘я спросил Ясеня…’ is quite OK too. As it was said grammatically the sentence is correct.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

No, I was wrong. It seems that ‘просить’ is transitive in both cases.
An object is just changed.
Я попросил у дочери пять рублей. ‘Пять рублей’ is an object.
Я попросил дочь дать мне пять рублей. ‘Дочь’ is an object.
Sorry :)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Ok, this clears things up. Thanks for the excellent responses.

[oryx_and_crake]

"я спросил ясеня" is wrong precisely because ясень is inanimate. It should be "я спросил ясень".

[scolar.livejournal.com]

Please read item #6 in the chapter from Rosenthal's book: http://www.spelling.spb.ru/rosenthal/alpha/r151.htm

I'm pretty sure that in this poetic context "ясень" becomes animate.

[oryx_and_crake]

No, I don't think any of the cases Rosenthal describes fit here.

[scolar.livejournal.com]

Why? In my opinion, it's a pure case of "олицетворение" (the poem hero expects that "ясень" will listen and talk to him).

[oryx_and_crake]

Just a gut feeling.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

"Я спросил ясеня" is completely incorrect, not just "a little bit ugly".
That is because without "у" the noun after "я спросил" should be in the correct case to answer "кого? что?".
"Ясеня" is in inappropriate case to answer that question. "Ясеня" answers "кого? чего?".

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

It would only be correct if "ясень" was a proper name, in which case it would start with a capital letter.

[scolar.livejournal.com]

"Я спросил этого старого пня" or "я спросил этот старый пень"? Or do you think we should write "Старого Пня"? Once again, there is such thing in Russian called "олицетворение" (google it), when you use inanimate noun as animate.

In other thread we were arguing with oryx_and_crake if this can be applied here.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

"Я спросил этого старого пня" is fine, "Я спросил ясеня" is not. "Старый пень" is a widely used wording for some old dumb person. "Ясень" isn't known in a similar way. In my opinion, it has nothing to do with "олицетворение".

[scolar.livejournal.com]

See another sample of "олицетворение" in Russian classical poetry:

Ветер, после трех ночей,
Мчится к матери своей.

Ветра спрашивает мать:
"Где изволил пропадать?"
(http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/majkov/spi-ditya-moe.html)

[scolar.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/638595.html?thread=9836163#t9836163